Wireless communication systems transfer data packets between User Equipment (UE) to provide data communication services, like internet access, voice calls, media streaming, user messaging, among other communication services. Wireless communication systems allow users to move about and communicate over the air with access communication.
To expand or enhance the wireless signal coverage of a wireless communication network, repeaters may be added to locations not adequately covered by current network infrastructure. A repeater receives and transmits wireless signals exchanged between UEs and a wireless access point. Without the signal repetition provided by the wireless repeater, the coverage area of the wireless access point may otherwise have not extended far enough to serve the UEs using the repeater.
A wireless communication system may employ Carrier Aggregation (CA). CA allows communication networks to use multiple resource blocks simultaneously for a UE. A UE uses CA to increase data throughput and transmission speeds to a wireless access point. Wireless communication systems can aggregate carriers over various frequency bands using Intra-Band Contiguous CA, Intra-Band Non-Contiguous CA, and Inter-Band CA. Intra-Band Contiguous CA uses component carriers that are in the same frequency band and are adjacent to each other. Intra-Band Non-Contiguous CA uses component carriers that are in the same frequency band but are not adjacent to each other. Inter-Band CA uses component carriers that are in different frequency bands. CA configurations for UEs communicating over repeaters may include a Primary Component Carrier (PCC) to exchange control and signaling data and one or more Secondary Component Carriers (SCCs) to exchange additional user data between the UE and the wireless access point.
Although repeaters are a useful solution to expanding network coverage, each time a wireless repeater repeats a wireless signal a delay is caused. This may cause a ripple effect in which the accumulated delay further down the wireless repeater chain may be significantly high. Therefore, UEs further down the wireless repeater chain may require a different radio frequency band for a CA PCC and a different amount of CA SCCs than a UE not communicating over the wireless repeater chain. Unfortunately, current methods of controlling CA in a wireless repeater chain are neither efficient nor effective.